Unearthings

This is from a series of scratchy, glitchy, low-fi podcasts we produced a few years ago. Although February is often the harshest month of winter, there's always the promise of better times ahead. It's the most schizophrenic time of the year - a time of snowstorms and snowdrops, sap rising and earth freezing, of Valentines and Lenten fasting, of optimism and resignation. Remember man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return...

A compline for jackdaws and rooks, recorded at Buckenham in Norfolk.

sharon sanderon - field recordings

robert sanderson - gramophonics & samples

Low tide, and the stunted remains of a Bronze Age timber circle poke through the sand. A herd of curlews take to the air just above the surface of the water, and land a few yards away. A parcel of oystercatchers go about their business among the peat outcrops. Just over there, inside another timber circle, a body lies under the sky in the roots of an inverted oak, waiting for gulls and crows to pluck out the eyes, gouge out the innards and strip the flesh from the bones, to set the spirit free.

Soon the tide will turn, and the shifting sands will cover everything, and everything will be lost…

An audio snapshot of an area of Newcastle down near the Quayside, watched over by the kittiwakes that nest under the Tyne Bridge, and on the balconies of the Baltic contemporary art gallery.

sharon sanderson - field recordings

robert sanderson - singing, guitar & atmospherics

Over the centuries the nightingale has flown in and out of the English national psyche, and its song has been an inspiration for musicians and poets throughout the ages. One of the cultural myths concerning the bird involved it jamming along to a cellist during a series of live recordings broadcast by the BBC, though it now seems likely that the corporation used the skills of a siffleur to impersonate its song.

This track is based on variations of a dance by John Playford, and incorporates samples from the 1943 propaganda film The Demi-Paradise.

The nightingales were recorded on Westleton Heath in Suffolk.

sharon sanderson - field recordings

robert sanderson - acoustic guitar & atmospherics

recorded by sanderson & sanderson

a soundscape based on a derelict nuclear weapon testing site on the Suffolk coast

blue danube

big bertha

brown bunny

blue peacock

blue fox

blue hare

blue steel

blue water

green bamboo

green granite

purple granite

short granite

orange herald

violet club

pixie

knobkerrie

sea slug

red beard

red snow

yellow sun

blue danube

(code names for atomic weapons research projects linked to the Orford Ness testing site)

recorded by sanderson & sanderson

a soundscape based on a derelict nuclear weapon testing site on the Suffolk coast

blue danube

big bertha

brown bunny

blue peacock

blue fox

blue hare

blue steel

blue water

green bamboo

green granite

purple granite

short granite

orange herald

violet club

pixie

knobkerrie

sea slug

red beard

red snow

yellow sun

blue danube

(code names for atomic weapons research projects linked to the Orford Ness testing site)

The music is the landscape, and the landscape is the music, and we’re all tied to it by our shared history...

Unearthings is a series of transmissions inspired by the changing seasons and changing landscape of East Anglia, drawing on poetry, prose, found texts and field recordings.

We navigated by stars,

charted our course by constellations,

carried cargo on the German Ocean from Lubek to Lynn

and fished for herring and cod

in the cold north waters.

We lined up with the church towers

as we pulled into port,

and carved our crude ships

on the pillars in the nave -

votive scratchings as we listened to long sermons

for the saints and the hammer-beam angels

to intercede for us,

and grant us safe passage.

And after the harbour has silted up

and after the river has changed its course

and after the town has hollowed out

and long after we have sailed from these shores

our graffiti ships will still be there

safe in the haven

of our souls.

sharon sanderson - field recordings

robert sanderson - music, atmospherics & voice

Graffiti Ships inspired by the medieval ship graffiti in St. Nicholas’ church at Blakeney, North Norfolk.

A fanfare and field recording made during the red deer rutting season on Westleton Heath in Suffolk